


The Crown and the Shadow

by misskatieleigh, SassySnowperson (DramaticEntrance)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Not Underage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 04:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11729715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misskatieleigh/pseuds/misskatieleigh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DramaticEntrance/pseuds/SassySnowperson
Summary: If Cassian has no place, Leia knows hers far too well. Her Royal Highness, Senator Leia Organa, Heir of the House of Organa and the House of Antilles, Princess of Alderaan. She has a duty. There is no space for wanting, here.





	The Crown and the Shadow

He remembers the bomb in intricate detail. It had felt so large in his six-year-old hands, heavy with both the weight of the explosive and his father’s eyes on his face. He should have been in bed, tucked safe away from danger. Not sneaking through an alley toward the 'trooper barracks, sliding across the frozen slush to keep from leaving footprints. He had glanced back, just for a second, hoping to see an encouraging face. No one looked up. He was alone.

* * *

Cassian Andor meets Leia Organa for the first time when she is ten years old. 

* * *

Coming back from a mission is always difficult. An alias is like a second skin, every difference between himself and his new identity a rough, grating thing that chafes until the day it doesn’t. Then, it settles; actions become instinct, thoughts flow into words. An Imperial uniform tailored to fit his growing shoulders. Sloughing that off is twisting the dial in reverse. Relearning himself from patchy memory, K-2SO playing holo recordings of his own accent until his mouth curves around his mother’s language properly. 

He knows he’s losing pieces along the way. 

* * *

The Rebellion asks many things of its soldiers. Discipline. Resolve. Obedience. Sometimes, they ask too much. 

* * *

Cassian walks out of the debrief and finds that he can’t bring himself to go back to his room. He aches, still, in places that he’s trying very hard not to think about. It feels as though there’s a neon sign hanging round his neck, declaring just what he’s worth to the cause. Written in the dark fingerprint shaped bruises across his neck and the split lip that keeps cracking open whenever his mouth moves, the answer seems to be not a whole lot. He can’t bring this feeling back to his room, or he’ll never escape it. 

The Force deems this the perfect moment for Leia Organa to come screaming around the corner toward him. Cassian freezes in place, bracing for the impact. Leia has yet to grow into the grace a princess ought to have, too skinny limbs and a mouth that doesn’t know how to stop. Something in his expression must be enough to catch her off guard, though, because she skids to a stop a few feet away, that mobile mouth tipping down at the corners. 

“Cassian. I – I’m glad to see you’re back. I was just bringing Father to see the paintings I did with Mother today. She said they’re as good as anything you’d see hanging in a museum on Corellia. I’m… not actually sure if that was a compliment, now that I think of it. In any case, would – would you maybe want to come see them?”

Cassian feels his mouth curl up at the corner. Leia’s practically vibrating there in front of him, clearly trying not to mention his bruised face. Someone has apparently taught her tact. He lets the smile form fully, careful of his split lip. 

“That – sounds lovely, Leia. Of course, I’ll come see your paintings.” He turns to Leia’s father and gives an awkward nod. “So long as the Senator doesn’t mind, that is.”

Senator Organa’s face is pinched, like he's thinking too hard about an unsolvable problem. He looks between Cassian and the door to General Draven’s office behind him, letting out a heavy sigh. 

“Of course, Cassian. Perhaps we’ll have a chance to – talk – after, if you’ve a moment.”

Leia looks between the two men, clearly reading the tension hanging in the air. She slips her hand into Cassian’s carefully, cool fingers threading between his much longer ones. 

“Let’s go already, then. Cassian, do you have a favorite painter? Mine is Harafati from Coruscant, but Mother says he’s a hack.”

Cassian chuckles softly. “I don’t really know much about painting, Leia. I guess I missed that class in school.”

Leia bites her lip thoughtfully. “I guess that’s alright. I could let you borrow a datastick if you’re interested though.”

He doesn’t see her much after that. General Draven does give him a few weeks off before his next mission, though he’s not sure if it due to the damage to his face or the discussion he and Senator Organa had about what he was willing to do for the Rebellion. 

The answer will always be everything. 

* * *

Leia is fascinated by Cassian Andor, and has been since she was ten years old. 

* * *

Impeccably groomed to speak with care, to keep secrets as shields and words as weapons, she is slowly taken into the fold of her parent’s confidence. She does not learn of the Rebellion until she understands her duty to protect it. 

Leia stands at her father’s side and she watches. She learns the ways the leaders work, who will act and who will caution. She watches the pilots, loud and brash and dazzling. She watches the soldiers, rough and competent and moving as one. She watches the cooks, the techs, the comms officers, all those who work to keep the Rebellion together. 

She watches him. 

He moves alone, winding his way through the different packs. Always welcome, never belonging. He is friendly with many, close with none. Fundamentally, he is a creature of isolation. 

Leia suspects he might understand what it’s like to be a princess. 

He’s the only one who watches her back. Normally, she moves through the Rebellion lightly, as her father’s adored shadow. People speak with her, she greets them as gracefully as she can manage (more and more as the years go by), and then they ignore her. All but him. Half the time her eyes slide over to his form he’s watching her back.

She tries talking to him, of course. She’s good at talking. But her words get all twisted around him, suddenly she’s excitable and silly and tripping over her words in a way that she never is in public. She knows her father sees. He probably assumes that it’s a crush. 

It might be. There certainly isn’t anyone else that captures Leia’s attention so thoroughly. But she doesn’t really know what a crush feels like. What she knows is this; Cassian fights differently than she does. Cassian is dangerous and direct and he doesn’t speak, he acts. Cassian comes back to the base covered in bruises and blood that often isn’t his. This is what she knows; Cassian watches the same way she does. Held apart, bound by duty, paying attention. 

So she can’t help herself. She still seeks out his company. And he...well he at least tolerates her. She can almost always get him to smile his amused, indulgent little smile. But sometimes...sometimes she says something just right and he smiles and he becomes the entire center of her universe, for that moment. 

She’s never met someone so different from her. She’s never met someone so much the same. 

* * *

The next time they see each other more than just in passing glances and a few overly-polite sentences, she’s seventeen. Draven assigns Cassian to act as one of her guards on a diplomatic mission to one minor core planet or another. The place doesn’t matter, honestly, he’s been to enough planets to realize that there are good and bad wherever you go. There has been talk of a spy among their ranks, though whether they’re looking to gather intelligence or worse is unknown. He’s not sure why he’s surprised when it’s the latter. 

Leia's barely taller than when she was ten, but she's grown into her role, her personality more than making up for her small stature.  They dress her in white, a vision of purity for the masses. He wonders if she knows she’s being used just as much as he is. Judging by the look she levels when someone doesn’t live up to her standards, the answer is a firm yes. 

He admires her for that. Her resolve is like a fixed point in space.

* * *

Breha Organa is a formidable woman. Standing in Leia’s room, clearly fighting the urge to check one more time that her daughter’s still breathing, Breha fixes him with a look so like his mother’s that Cassian has to take a step back.

“I suppose I should thank you, Lieutenant, for keeping my daughter alive.”

Cassian swallows, looking past her at Leia’s blanket covered form. “That’s my job.” He hesitates, her title stumbling over his tongue. “Your Majesty.”

The Queen smiles, a strange darkness lurking in the shadows of her eyes. “And will it continue to be your job? To keep her safe? I might actually be able to sleep at night if I knew there was someone watching over her.”

Pulling his eyes away from Breha’s, Cassian makes a noise of irritation in his throat. “I just go where I’m assigned. You’d have to talk to General Draven if you want me added to the Princess’ guard.”

Her eyes soften, almost imperceptibly. “I believe I may have misunderstood. Leia mentioned you so often, I was under the impression that you and she were…”

Cassian takes a step back, shoulders squaring. “I can assure you that the Princess and I have had nothing but professional contact. I know my place.”

The Queen smiles, but her eyes are sad. “Yes, I suppose you do.”

He tries very hard not to think about what she means. 

He waits five minutes after she leaves before turning back to Leia’s still form on the bed. “You can stop pretending you’re asleep now.”

Leia slips her head out from under the blanket slowly. “Who could sleep with you thinking so loud?” 

She wrestles the blanket aside, sitting up and pulling her knees to her chest. “Seriously, Andor, stop blaming yourself. I’m fine and Yoren will rot in a cell somewhere for the next thirty years. I’m safe, everyone’s happy.”

Cassian closes his eyes and leans heavily against the wall. “Yoren’s dead. Took some kind of poison before we could even question him.” He opens his eyes to find Leia watching him carefully. “So no, not everyone is happy.”

* * *

Cassian vanishes soon after that. She isn’t certain why. It’s not that she can’t think of a reason, it’s that she can think of far too many. 

Only one that bothers her, though. _"I know my place.”_  And what, exactly, did he think his place was? She has watched him nearly half her life, now. He has no place. He fits himself to places, and never ever claims them.  

With a disgruntled exhale, she throws off both the covers and the medic’s instructions to, “Get some rest.” 

She finds him outside the embassy, standing in the rain, face turned up to the sky. Maybe he thinks the rain will wash away his – something – his hurt, his failure. His tears, at least. He looks down as she walks up to him, his eyes focused on something far away. Leia lifts her hand to his face, just resting her palm against his cheek. 

“You might want to rethink your outfit, if you’re going to be standing in the rain often. Princess.” The title is an afterthought, a reminder of her place here. She wonders which one of them he’s supposed to be reminding. She certainly can never forget. 

She spares a glance down, her white robes turning more translucent by the second, then she steps closer. “Well, if you’d be so kind as to have your existential crisis on a sunny beach next time, perhaps we won’t have a recurring problem. Cassian.” She says his name softly, purposefully kind. It’s a reminder for him as well. If he wanted, he could have a place. She wants to move even closer, wants to have the answer to his tears. Wants to kiss him, most of all. 

That’s new. She has to stop herself from following through, push down this sudden desire to know what his mouth would feel like. 

If Cassian has no place, Leia knows hers far too well. Her Royal Highness, Senator Leia Organa, Heir of the House of Organa and the House of Antilles, Princess of Alderaan. She has a duty. There is no space for wanting, here. 

* * *

Leia survives seventeen. And eighteen, well on her way toward nineteen before the ripples of the Empire’s intentions start to bristle at even the most recalcitrant Council members. Cassian spends more and more time off of Yavin, collecting intel and making contacts. Everytime he comes back, though, she finds her way into his orbit. 

As a man who has spent his life finding ways to be invisible, her uncanny ability to see him has always been a little unnerving. For as long as she’s been a fixture of the Rebellion, he’s noticed just how much she watches him. It only really begins to bother him when he realizes that other people are noticing her attention as well.  

He hears the whispers, it’s what he’s trained to do. 

_“The Princess should be careful with her heart. A man like that...”_  some mutter, pious and concerned.

Others, with a bit of a smirk, _“Who knew Organa’s girl was interested in a bit of rough trade?”_

It bothers him for the sake of her reputation, of course. But he’s also become more and more aware that Princess Leia is no longer the gangly child not-quite grown into her limbs. She’s beautiful. He hates that he notices. He hates that there’s any hint of truth to the rumors. He doesn’t need others to let him know he’s bad for Leia. Bad for her reputation. He’s not asking her to come around. For her sake, he wishes she wouldn’t. 

For his own, he hopes she never stops. 

He’s found something, in her smile, in her trust. He loses himself in one skin or another, in hard decisions and careful betrayals. He loses piece after piece. And then he comes back to base and does his best to stitch those tatters into a whole person again. He’s patchwork, and there’s Leia, smiling at him just the same. It’s easier to believe he’s more than the sum of his shards, when she’s around.

But he’s being selfish and others are noticing. 

* * *

It all comes to a head the day she puts her hand on his arm in the middle of an Intelligence meeting. Leia’s only there under Senator Mothma’s directive, to learn all the different moving parts of the Alliance. Someone criticizes his actions on one of his recent missions, one that had ended in another dead body, and Leia jumps to his defence. Eighteen years old and she’s talking to one of the Commander’s like she’s been planning missions for half her life. Then her hand drops to his arm and Cassian watches as every eye in the room follows its path. Draven’s eyes flick to him, narrowing. Cassian wonders if Draven would even care about his romantic attachments, unless they compromised him as an agent. Leia Organa’s lover is not a title any spy should hold.

There’s nothing he can do though, short of embarrassing her or drawing further attention. Finally Senator Mothma cuts in, halting Leia’s speech and ending the meeting. He waits until everyone else has filed out before following her into the hall. 

She turns to look at him with a smile, but he’s already got a thunderstorm rattling around inside. 

“Leia, don’t do that again.”

Leia stops short, confusion drawing her brows together. 

“Do what, defend you? I can see how they look at you. If you won’t stand up for yourself, someone else has to.”

“Don’t _touch_  me.” She doesn’t get it still, he can tell, her mouth twisting into a smirk. 

“What are you talking about? I just touched your arm!”

This is not the right place for this conversation. He can already picture the looks they’d get, alone in the hall like this, standing too close. He grabs her arm and hauls her into the first empty room he sees. 

Of course it’s an empty bedroom, quarters set aside for visiting intelligence officers. Her indignant squawk of protest would have made him laugh on any other day. Today it just makes him want to clap his hand over her mouth. 

“I’m pretty sure that you dragging me around looks worse than me touching your arm, innocently I might add.”

“You may have intended innocence, but that’s not what other people are seeing.” Cassian releases her arm, takes a step back from her. 

“Let them assume what they want.” Leia rolls her eyes, an utterly unprincess-like gesture.

“Stop being so willfully stupid.” His words are cruel, and he nearly regrets them as he speaks, but he is unable to stop the torrent inside of him from pouring out. “You mean something to the Rebellion, to everyone. People hang on your casual gestures. You don’t get to throw that away for a man like me.” 

“A man like - and who do you think you are?” Leia takes a step back from him, looking startled at the venom in his voice. “And I mean that seriously, Cassian. Because as near as I can tell, you see yourself as nothing more than a tool to be used as the Rebellion sees fit. You sit there and let them judge you, like—”

“I don’t need a child defending me!” 

“You don’t get to have it both ways,” Leia’s fingers are curling in front of her, her eyes fixed on his face, looking for all the world like she’s trying to hold herself back from wringing Cassian’s neck. “Either I am a child and not responsible for my own decisions, or I’m a figurehead and I’m responsible for everything.”

“I didn’t mean it like—”

“Then you’d better figure out how you did mean it. Go on, Cassian, you’ve dragged me off into this isolated room to have it out with me, there’s not going to be a better time to tell me how little I apparently matter to you.” 

“You matter a great deal, Leia.” Cassian is confused at the sudden turn the conversation has taken.

“Yes. I matter to the Rebellion. But not to you.” And all at once, her fury breaks, and she hunches over a little, as vulnerable as Cassian has ever seen her. “And why should I? I always seem to be at my most idiotic around you. No wonder you look at me and just see a silly girl, too stupid to understand that she’s compromising the great spy Cassian Andor.”

“I don’t think that.” 

“Your actions say otherwise.”

“You...you could never make me worse. But people are noticing. You’re compromising yourself.”

“And that’s my choice to make! Moon and Stars, Cassian, can’t you see how important you are to me? You’re like gravity. You draw me to you. I noticed you ages ago, and I’ve never been able to stop. So, yes, I like touching your arm from time to time. It’s not the end of the world.” 

No. Cassian can’t be important to Leia. Leia is going to lead them all someday. For all that Leia Organa’s Lover is a title no spy should have, the Princess being Cassian Andor’s Lover...that is unthinkable. 

Someday, probably someday soon, he is going to leave and not come back. She needs someone better. She deserves someone better. Cassian has to make her see that.

“You have a responsibility to be wise.”

Rather than causing Leia to sit down and think for two seconds, his words seem to fan the flames of her anger right back to blazing. “I am tired of responsibility! It doesn’t matter! I just want you!” 

Cassian stares at her, and she stares back. She holds his gaze in her eyes and she looks hopeful. She looks at him like he matters. Like there’s something there that’s worth wanting. She takes a tiny step towards him.

Cassian panics. Desperate, he says, “You don’t understand your place.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.  

“My place.” Leia’s voice runs cold, her shoulders drawing up.  

He can pinpoint the exact moment when he loses Leia and finds Princess Organa, ice sliding over her features and her eyes, any sort of real feeling smoothed out behind the mask.

As she withdraws, Cassian finds himself ready to explode. Leia’s face could be stone for all that her expression changes. 

“Do you really think it doesn’t matter? I’m seven years older than you!” He takes a step forward, pushing into her space. “I’m a killer. I’m a spy. I use people.” He’s seething now, step after step pushing forward, crowding her back against the wall. “You don’t want me. You have no idea what I’ve seen, what I’ve done. You live a sheltered life, Princess. Have you ever even been with a man before?” Cassian scoffs. 

Leia’s back hits the wall, and one hand comes up, pressing lightly on Cassian’s chest, keeping him from coming any closer.

He’s being cruel and he knows it, but he’s itching for her to fight back. It may be what he wanted, but he finds he can’t bear to leave her like this, Princess more than person. “Maybe this is just a game for you, Princess, but I’m not interested in being your plaything.”

Leia tilts her chin up, regal, impassive. He presses forward even more, trapping her hand between them. He wants to scream.

“Cassian.” The sound of his name on her tongue is like free-falling, like low oxygen and the vastness of space. “You’re not a thing.”

Cassian feels the storm break inside of him.

He kisses her, pouring all his frustration and irritation and desire into the sweep of his tongue in her mouth, his teeth against her lips. Leia’s sharp noise of surprise is muffled by his mouth, her body stays frozen for a long moment. Then all at once she surges up into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and lifting up on her toes to reach his mouth. One of her legs slides up his side, starting to wrap around his waist, pressing them even closer together.

Cassian’s hand is halfway around the back of Leia’s knee before he realizes what he’s doing. His body hasn’t caught up with his brain, every part of him aching to get closer, to finish this dance between them. He presses in for a long second, feeling the shape of her against his body before his brain finally takes over, dawning horror overtaking desire. He lets go, reeling backward, praying she won’t come after him. He doesn’t trust himself right now. 

As he trips over himself, he stutters out, “We can’t do this.”

Her mask is gone now, every inch of propriety and grace stripped away. She just looks like a woman now, instead of some untouchable dream. It only makes him want her more. He sits on the bed, likely a bad idea, but he can't stand anymore. Leia takes a tentative step forward, then another and another, until she's standing in front of him. He drops his head down, resting his forehead on her stomach. 

“Leia, we can't do this.”

She lays her hands on his shoulder blades, the span of her fingers like wings on his back. He can smell her perfume, her clean robes, another reminder of the differences between them.

Her voice is strained. “I can't do anything.”

He should leave. Say goodbye and lose himself in his next mission, run from the anchor of her hands on his back. He wraps his arms around her hips and pulls her into the vee of his legs, turning his face so his cheek is pressed against her. 

“You deserve the best things in this world. I want you to have time. Time to figure out who you want to be, find a prince and live a happy life.”

“I already am who I want to be. I am Leia Organa, future Queen of Alderaan. I am an Imperial Senator and I’m Rebel scum. I know my place, Cassian, and my responsibility, but for all that…” She trails off, and he feels the sob tearing up from inside her before he hears it in her voice.

“I'd rather have you.”

He pulls her closer. He can have one more moment, her hands carding through his hair and no one watching. He doesn’t deserve even this much, but he needs it nonetheless.

* * *

It gets harder to stay away after that, but Cassian forces himself to do it anyway. K-2SO thinks he’s being stupid, and takes every opportunity to tell him so. It doesn’t matter. Every time he washes someone else’s blood from his hands, he knows he’s made the right choice. 

* * *

Cassian pulls his comm from his pocket. He looks up, and up and up, too far to climb with his leg definitely broken, but he has to follow Jyn. He has to finish this. 

He clicks the comm on. She’ll never hear him. She’s nowhere near here, he prays and prays and prays, safe and sound in some boring diplomatic meeting halfway across the galaxy. 

“Leia.” Fuck, why is he doing this? He needs to move, there isn’t enough time.  Cassian closes his eyes and puts down the comm. He steels himself for the climb, digging around in his kit for something to numb the pain. 

He picks up the comm again, intending to put it away. He decides to be selfish, one last time. 

“Leia, I love you.” 

For her sake, he hopes she isn't listening. His death doesn't need to be any harder. For his sake, he hopes she hears. He wants her to know. 

Cassian shuts off his comm and slips it back into his pocket. He has a mission to complete.

* * *

Leia stands on the deck of the ship, holding the datadisc in her hand. Someone asks her, “What is it they’ve sent us?” and she thinks, ‘a life’s work, a legacy, a smile across a corridor, the electric feel of possibility.’ She thinks, she _prays_  to whatever Force binds them all together, ‘Please, let this all be worth it.’

Cassian did his duty. Now it’s her turn. Leia lifts her chin, and becomes what others need her to be. She says, “Hope.”

After all, rebellions are built on hope. 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic may never have seen the light of day if it weren't for the fantastic work of my co-author [SassySnowperson](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DramaticEntrance/pseuds/SassySnowperson) who jumped in and gave Leia a voice. - misskatieleigh

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [love is a poor man's food](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12741699) by [misskatieleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misskatieleigh/pseuds/misskatieleigh)




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